Tuesday, 31 July 2007

The definition of "gaffe" in Washington is speaking the truth out loud:

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party’s efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.

In other words, the Dems don’t want to let success get in the way of a good surrender.

Federal agents snapped photos and trained video cameras on the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens during a search related to a public corruption investigation, law enforcement officials said.

Stevens, 83, is under a federal investigation for his relationship with Bill Allen, an oil field services contractor who was convicted this year of bribing state lawmakers.

A 2000 renovation project more than doubling the size of Stevens’ home in the ski resort community of Girdwood was overseen by Allen, who is founder of VECO Corp. The Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

[...]

Stevens, who has been in office since 1968 and is the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, said the interests of justice would be best served if he commented after the investigation.

"I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome," Stevens said. "The legal process should be allowed to proceed so that all the facts can be established and the truth determined."

Three contractors who worked on the remodeling project told the Daily News in May that their records had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, and others connected with the work and with Stevens said they had been interviewed or called to appear before a grand jury.

One of the contractors who worked on the job said he was hired by Veco CEO Bill Allen. The contractor said that his invoices were paid by Stevens and his wife, Catherine, but that the bills were reviewed first by Veco.

A federal law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of not being identified by name, said the FBI is trying to determine whether Stevens has received a hidden benefit stemming from his position in Congress.

If Stevens received renovation work for which he did not pay, it could be deemed unreported income by the IRS. Receipt of unreported renovation work also could amount to an illegal gratuity. Or if it were performed in return for political favors, it could be considered a bribe.

They’re leaving out the obvious: Stevens may have been billed at below-market rates. Paying $20,000 for $50,000 in home improvements is a $30,000 bribe, no matter how completely the invoices list the work performed. I suspect that’s where we’re headed, based on this:

Two weeks ago, Stevens told reporters that money for the remodeling came out of his own pocket.

"As a practical matter, I will tell you. We paid every bill that was given to us," Stevens told reporters. "Every bill that was sent to us has been paid, personally, with our own money, and that’s all there is to it. It’s our own money."

"Every bill that was given to us" says it all.

Stevens’s addiction to pork has made him about the least favorite GOP lawmaker, rivaled only by the RINOs. Let’s hope the knives go in quickly.

A federal bankruptcy judge Monday awarded the rights to O.J. Simpson’s canceled "If I Did It" book to murder victim Ronald Goldman’s family, who say they want to release the book to portray Simpson as a murderer and wife beater.

The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol to satisfy a $38 million wrongful death judgment against the former football star ignored complaints from the family of Simpson’s murdered ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, who was slain along with her friend Goldman in a brutal 1994 knife attack.

Lawyers for the Brown family had sought a greater share of possible profits from the book.

[...]

Goldman said he has no plans to alter any of the Simpson manuscript, which describes how the slayings might have been committed and discusses at length Simpson’s relationship with his ex-wife. But Goldman said the family may add a prologue or other "enhancements" to what was already written.

Altering any of the manuscript itself would be fraught with legal peril. Simpson might sue for defamation if alterations made him look more culpable, if that is possible at this point.

Ministers insisted that British secret agents would only be allowed to pass intelligence to the CIA to help it capture Osama bin Laden if the agency promised he would not be tortured, it has emerged.

MI6 believed it was close to finding the al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan in 1998, and again the next year. The plan was for MI6 to hand the CIA vital information about Bin Laden. Ministers including Robin Cook, the then foreign secretary, gave their approval on condition that the CIA gave assurances he would be treated humanely. The plot is revealed in a 75-page report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee on rendition, the practice of flying detainees to places where they may be tortured.

And hilarious:

The report criticises the Bush administration’s approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.

That damned Bush, he was trying to torture jihadists while he was still governor of Texas.